Comments on: What’s Your Language Personality?

By: Zeek

Zeek — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:13:00 +0000

“linguistic comfort food” — I’ve experienced this may times but never able to identify it so succinctly as you have. Thank you!

By: Laurel

Laurel — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 04:44:10 +0000

This is a truly wonderful article, and the comments are fabulous.

I was raised by a Polish expat nanny with little to no English experience (my first words were in Polish, and I had a very heavy accent!). Polish is like linguistic comfort food- hearing and speaking it never fails to make me feel a little more optimistic.

By: Aj

Aj — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:00:26 +0000

It’s so great to find articles like this one which make you see a particular thing from a different perspective.

I am with you Sarah, there’s just something about Mexican Spanish which resonates with me, it feels like home. Of course this sort of feeling is inextricably linked with the experience one has with a country on the whole, but I can definitely see how language suits different personalities.

It’s something I’d never considered before, but when reading your reasons for fitting so perfectly into the spanish language i instantly realised that your words conveyed exactly how i feel.

There’s definitely something special about the spanish spoken in mexico; it’s just so creative, evocative and seductive. Something to play around with to suit what you want to say. Like you wrote in another article of yours about mexican slang, the words huevo, cabrón and madre are used in a way that would be considered ridiculous anywhere else… but whatever, it’s Mexico.

And more than any other I think it has become such a significant representation of, and a part of their culture and identity.

In the end, it’s just a lot of fun to be a part of.

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 01:53:44 +0000

I’m so relieved I’ve found this piece as I was beginning to think it was just me who felt different speaking different languages! I was born and grew up in England, learning French then German at school and going on to study them both first with Spanish and then Swedish at university. I now work as a translator and am currently learning Portuguese for work.
I’ve always been fascinated by French – I love the sounds and melody and particularly like all the slang that people use in everyday situations as it gives the language a very relaxed feel. Speaking French feels sexy and never fails to get the hormones going.
I now live in Germany and am constantly switching between German and English, German is very precise but also very direct and I often miss the circuitous niceties and straight-faced irony of (British) English. On the other hand, I often find English doesn’t quite hit the mark as regards precision when I’m trying to explain something, but English is definitely far more pragmatic and laid back than German. I do enjoy speaking German, though, feeling that my mouth is full of sounds from teeth to uvula and I still enjoy the linguistic acrobatics of German sentence structure!
I learnt Spanish more out of necessity than anything else because I needed a third language at uni and thought Spanish would be easy knowing French. It was easy, but having done French, Spanish all seemed rather straightforward and regular so unfortunately I tended to lose interest. One thing I have noticed, though, is that Spanish is a language you never really forget. German, on the other hand, starts to disappear rather quickly if you don’t speak it for a while.
Spanish has helped me a great deal with (European) Portuguese, however. I love this language: the way it sounds, its rather bizarre verb forms (inflected infinitives, if you please!) and the way the vowel sounds tend to disappear leaving a Slavic-sounding jumble of consonants – the complete opposite of Spanish where the consonants tend to be swallowed leaving the vowels. Also, I don’t think I’ve seen a language with so many cedillas!
My favourite language is Swedish, however. I love the purity and melody of its sounds. To me, it rivals Italian in beauty (they do call Stockholm the Venice of the North, after all) and I have to admit to feeling completely smitten whenever I hear it. You could read me a Swedish IKEA catalogue and I would be yours! It’s also fun to see how completely discombobulated most Swedes are when they meet a non-native that speaks their language!

By: Hannah In Motion

Hannah In Motion — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:44:28 +0000

Oooh, I love love LOVE this piece! I try to explain the feelings of different languages to my foreign mono-Turkish-speaking friends and it’s hard for them to grasp. For me:

1. Spanish is playful and fun like a little child, but yes, perhaps a little too easy(?)
2. French is sexy and slithering and (oh please say it again) “Take me here and now.”
3. German is playful and fun, but like a teenager who’s just learning how much to drink and what that super-awesome buzz feels like. It’s hard, but with a wink at the end, not a slap across the face.
4. And then there’s Turkish, which is… well, sort of like the Turks. Confusing. Round-about. But in the end well-meaning and if you can make it through, pretty lovely to have around.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:03:39 +0000

I like spanish and German.

By: Louis

Louis — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 09:10:56 +0000

Oh dear ! That happens when working right through the night !! It is of course :….but with no one to practice on….

By: Louis

Louis — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 09:06:03 +0000

Wow, very interesting to read the variety of opinions !! I’m 46, and nowadays feel really disgusted with myself not having studied more languages, for all the wasted years. I grew up completely bilingual in English and Afrikaans, in South Africa, but Afrikaans to me is the most beautiful language on the planet . I have studied German for 2 years at school, but never really came to like it. Spanish I started 18 months ago, I’ve always like the sound of it, and was making good strides, unntil I decided to go into teaching in Asia from September, a year ago. Since then, I assumed I was going to end up in China, so I started with Standard Beijing Mandarin, but with know one to practice on, and listen to, it is a tall order to make good progress. However, the water became a bit muddy since the start of this year, when things changed, and it seems that I am going to be living in Vietnam for a year or two — I don’t know if anyone here has ever met Viet up close and personal, but it does make Mandarin feel like a walk in the park These tonal languages ! But still, at the end of the day, my beloved Afrikaans rule !

By: Cristina

Cristina — Thu, 13 May 2010 22:24:11 +0000

interesting points Amir, are you languageaholic??? I share with the greatest part of you the sense of comfort speaking Spanish but, if so, why are we all going on with english here?

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:16:48 +0000

I grew up speaking English and German because I was born in Germany to American parents and have spent about half my life in Germany. I elected to study French and for awhile I really enjoyed it. However, since I started learning Hindi nearly 3 years ago, I love it more than French or German. Naturally English is still easiest. Hindi has a certain swing to it that I haven’t found in any other language, its very fluid and musical, at least to my ears.